A typical morning (with slight epiphany)

Recently days have been starting around two and three in the morning when I am woken up by the booming rumble of a thunderstorm and I glance out my window—usually to see if Papa Oscar got caught in the rain (he often sleeps out in the garden on a mattress because it is cooler outside at night).

I wake up a little before my alarm at 7:30 and take a shower where I use my shampoo for blondes. (On my first or second day here I got the words for brunette, morena, y blondes, rubia, mixed up when buying shampoo). So this is a nice little moment of humility every morning no matter how good I think my Spanish is getting. I then eat a yummy breakfast of fruit, eggs, and beans. I pack the lovely canvas bag I more or less stole from my APU roommate to take to school and then clean up the rest of my room (so as to prevent any friendly reminders from Mama Celina to not be so messy).

I leave for the bus stop around 9:15. I walk under the shade of the trees in the park behind my house where there are often older ladies getting their morning exercise. I dodge the cars pulling up to a day care center where parents just drive up for two seconds so the employees can walk their children the three feet from the car to the building and then drive away. I pass my favorite house that has a faded bright blue courtyard with a potted palm in one corner. I contemplate the possibility of sitting in front of their house for an hour to paint it and usually decide I wouldn’t be able to withstand the strange looks I’d get sitting on someone else’s property.

I pass by a bank and say hello to an employee there whose sole job is to guide the cars in and out of the parking lot safely. He is older with gray hair and dark leathery skin, usually in the classic dress for a Mexican: plaid shirt, big belt buckle, cowboy hat (which, come to think of it, are kind of fancy clothes seeing as he is outside all day long in the midst of dirty cars by a dirty street.) He wears an orange neon vest and waves a rag to guide the cars in and out. He is always so happy to see me. He greets me with the biggest smile, “¡Hola Señorita!” and shakes my hand so I have to stop walking and says a mixture of “God bless” and “Have a good day.”

I reach my bus stop corner and I wave down a bus usually singing a little song under my breath: “Please stop, please stop, please stop, ooooh please.” Sometimes I squeeze onto the steps right before the doors close and weave my hand in and out of all the other riders in order to get my money to the driver. Other times I am able to walk right to my seat in the back of the bus.

On these latter types of days I have the freedom to look around and admire the decorating job of the bus. All are different, although usually all have a crucifix or virgin de Guadalupe attached to the windshield. My favorite is completely pink on the inside. Its three mirrors up front and its crucifix are surrounded by white fur. There is a LA Laker`s sticker on one of the mirrors. The driver always wears a Hawaiian shirt.

I hit the red button to signal a stop and am let off at the intersection right in front of the gate to my school. I wait to cross the six lane road that although it has zebra stripes, has no walk sign. I contemplate how I would really like to be friends with the little boys that try to sell things at that intersection when the cars are stopped. They are so young—probably the youngest one about seven or eight. Their dark skin looks even darker with the smudges of dirt. Same clothes every day. Sometimes they try to wash cars, sometimes they are selling windshield wipers, sometimes flowers. I try to picture the little kids I know doing such a thing. I try to picture myself doing such a thing—in that nightmare of a road!!

I think that after I see these boys is when my mini panic attack starts every morning. This contrast between the street boys, the marginal of Mexico, and the large stone structure that marks the gate of my private university reflects the contrast between my expectations coming here with the reality. Reminds me of the gap between my desire to have more contact with locals and the kind of life the majority population have, and my actual experience of being kind of secluded in an upper class bubble. My anxieties about not finding an internship/service meet me at the gate, as well as my worries about not learning as much as I thought I would be. And of course every worry I’ve ever had comes at this moment too…especially those about what I’m gonna do after college, what I’m gonna do with my life.

Ok this sounds really bad. But I don’t mean to use panic attack with its literal medical definition. I just freak out mentally. Actually it didn’t happen today. It probably has to do with my recent decisions about leaving early….

Writing this has made me realize that I can be pro-active at this moment. While I don`t have an internship to force me to interact with locals or the majority population, I can talk to those vendedores, the street boys selling things. Maybe I can buy some of their windshield wipers. Anybody need some? Also I can work harder at doing extra things to learn more Spanish and practice more (which I have been doing, but I can do more). And I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go paint that potted palm.